Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works eBook

“Prosperity doesn’t come my way,”
he said in a rusty voice. “I’m a
failure—­always been a failure. And
yet you wouldn’t think it, would you?—­I
was a minister of religion once.”

Laurence held out a shilling. But the man shook
his head.

“Keep your money,” he said. “I’ve
got more than you to-day, I daresay. But thank
you for taking a little interest. That’s
worth more than money to a man that’s down.”

“You’re right.”

“Yes,” the rusty voice went on; “I’d
as soon die as go on living as I do. And now
I’ve lost my self-respect. Often wondered
how long a starving man could go without losing his
self-respect. Not so very long. You take
my word for that.” And without the slightest
change in the monotony of that creaking voice he added:

“Did you read of the murder? Just here.
I’ve been looking at the place.”

The words: ‘So have I!’ leaped up
to Laurence’s lips; he choked them down with
a sort of terror.

“I wish you better luck,” he said.
“Goodnight!” and hurried away. A
sort of ghastly laughter was forcing its way up in
his throat. Was everyone talking of the murder
he had committed? Even the very scarecrows?

III

There are some natures so constituted that, due to
be hung at ten o’clock, they will play chess
at eight. Such men invariably rise. They
make especially good bishops, editors, judges, impresarios,
Prime ministers, money-lenders, and generals; in fact,
fill with exceptional credit any position of power
over their fellow-men. They have spiritual cold
storage, in which are preserved their nervous systems.
In such men there is little or none of that fluid
sense and continuity of feeling known under those
vague terms, speculation, poetry, philosophy.
Men of facts and of decision switching imagination
on and off at will, subordinating sentiment to reason...
one does not think of them when watching wind ripple
over cornfields, or swallows flying.

Keith Darrant had need for being of that breed during
his dinner at the Tellassons. It was just eleven
when he issued from the big house in Portland Place
and refrained from taking a cab. He wanted to
walk that he might better think. What crude
and wanton irony there was in his situation!
To have been made father-confessor to a murderer,
he—­well on towards a judgeship! With
his contempt for the kind of weakness which landed
men in such abysses, he felt it all so sordid, so “impossible,”
that he could hardly bring his mind to bear on it at
all. And yet he must, because of two powerful
instincts—­self-preservation and blood-loyalty.

The wind had still the sapping softness of the afternoon,
but rain had held off so far. It was warm, and
he unbuttoned his fur overcoat. The nature of
his thoughts deepened the dark austerity of his face,
whose thin, well-cut lips were always pressing together,
as if, by meeting, to dispose of each thought as it
came up. He moved along the crowded pavements
glumly. That air of festive conspiracy which
drops with the darkness on to lighted streets, galled
him. He turned off on a darker route.